Free Hero by Perry Moore Page A

mirror, his eyes pleading.
    I looked down at my hands, blood from the wound seeping up between my fingertips. The young mother's eyes were rolling back into her head, so I pressed harder. The extra effort made me feel like my head was going to explode. The crack in the aisle from the Vamp's eye blast was getting closer and closer to us.
    "Help me!" I shouted.
    The Man in Black's eyes look down in resignation for a split second before he bounded out of his seat and threw himself back at Vamp. He backhanded her before she could finish ripping the bus in two, but not before Ssnake and Snaggletooth had pulled themselves back on board. Ssnake spit a glob of venom at the Man in Black, who leaped above it. The venom landed in a splat on the floor, and partially on top of the old man's steel-tipped shoe. It burned and dissolved the matter underneath it like acid. The old man screamed; his shoe hissed with smoke.
    I reached over to him, one hand still firmly attached to the young mother, and I covered his burning foot with my palm. I clenched my teeth in pain as my hand burned.
    Snaggletooth took a swipe at the Man in Black, and the vigilante flipped up into the air, landing far up the aisle. The puddle of Ssnake's spit had burned another hole through the floorboard. Snaggletooth lurched forward, and one of his legs dropped through the hole. He screamed in pain as his femur snapped. I squeezed the old man's foot tighter, determined not to let his foot dissolve.
    "Ssnake, get us off this thing!" Vamp rubbed her chin.
    "I'm trying!" He caught a deep punch to the kidney from the Man in Black.
    The Vamp rubbed her temples and aimed her vision at the apex of the bridge the bus had begun to climb. In an instant, she sent a shock blast that rippled fissures into the pavement. The bridge began to crumble.
    We all looked forward in horror as the bus sped toward a gaping hole in the bridge.
    The Man in Black swiftly struck Vamp in the windpipe with the side of his hand and jumped back into the driver's seat. He navigated the bus through the holes in the bridge like we were speeding through an obstacle course in a minefield.
    I struggled to hold on to both the young mother's bleeding side and the old man's dissolving foot. Below me, the middle of the bus was splitting in two, and it slowly began to stretch me apart like saltwater taffy. In a few seconds I was going to lose one of them, or drop in through the split in the floor, or both. I thought about what my dad would do in this situation, but I couldn't think fast enough. I didn't know how much longer I could hold on. I looked up at the Man in Black's eyes in the rearview mirror. I couldn't see an expression under his cowl, but I knew his eyes were telling me to hold on, the holes in the pavement ahead of us didn't matter, we were almost there, I could do it.
    Beneath me the two halves of the bus parted.
    "Look!" The little girl pointed out the window. At first they looked like a flock of giant birds.
    Suddenly, a rainbow of colors lit up the night outside of the bus. Sparks of light reflected off the little girl's face, and a fireworks display of bright colors exploded around us.
    The birds swooped down closer, and I realized they weren't birds at all.
    It was the League.

CHAPTER FIVE
    UBERMAN DOVE DOWN from the stars ready for battle, his body aimed, his muscles poised and rippling under his costume. His cape and long hair moved in silky waves behind him as he flew.
    The Spectrum, who was the League's most easily recognizable hero next to Uberman, emitted a tangible rainbow bridge of color from his fingertips that let the bus glide smoothly over the last deadly holes in the bridge.
    Then Uberman landed on the front of the bus with a grace¬ful plink, lifted us, and suddenly we were airborne. The passen¬gers on the bus cheered. The Man in Black, now useless in the driver's seat, looked at me through the rearview mirror. I caught myself looking up at Uberman with sheer awe.
    The Man in Black